The word atheism came into the English language in the 1580s from the French athéisme whose origins can be traced to the Greek atheos meaning “without god.” In the 1530s, atheonism was used for this concept. Atheonism seems to come from the ancient Greek atheotes which means “ungodliness.”
Today, atheism is often used to describe the rejection of belief in the existence of deities, that is, atheism is a rejection of theism. In his book Beginner’s Guide to Blasphemy, Richard Wackrow writes:
“The word atheist would not exist at all were it not for the fact that the worldwide cultural default is belief in a god or gods—thus necessitating a special word for those who have stopped believing or who never did believe to begin with.”
One of the common misconceptions about atheism is the assumption that atheism is the opposite of religion. For people whose definition of religion is based on the belief in gods, if there is no belief in gods, then there is no religion. There are many religious traditions, however, which are not based in theistic concepts and may, therefore, be described as atheistic. These atheistic religions may include Confucianism, Daoism, Buddhism, and some tribal religions. While atheism is a rejection of a belief in gods, it is not a rejection of religion per se.
Philosopher Ernest Nagel, in his essay “Philosophical Concepts of Atheism in Critiques of God: Making the Case Against Belief in God, writes:
“I shall understand by ‘atheism’ a critique and a denial of the major claims of all varieties of theism.”
In his entry on atheism in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Louis Pojman distinguishes between theoretical atheism and practical atheism:
“A theoretical atheist is one who self-consciously denies the existence of a supreme being, while a practical atheist may believe that a supreme being exists but lives as though there were no god.”
The Russian-born anarchist Emma Goldman, who was deported to Russia in 1919 because of her opposition to militarism and war, talks of atheistic philosophy in an article republished in The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever:
“The philosophy of Atheism represents a concept of life without any metaphysical Beyond or Divine Regulator. It is the concept of an actual, real world with its liberating, expanding and beautifying possibilities, as against an unreal world, which, with its spirits, oracle, and mean contentment, has kept humanity in helpless degradation.”
In a similar vein, the Anglican theologian Richard Hooker (1554-1600), in his book Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity, expressed the idea of two kinds of atheists. First, there was a very small group of people who did not believe in God (that is, the Christian God). And then, there was a much larger group who lived as though God did not exist.
A number of atheists say that they do not “reject” a belief in deities, but rather they simply find no reasons to believe in them. They point out that “rejecting belief” presupposes the belief in the first place. They also point out that an atheist can hold all kinds of supernatural and irrational beliefs, but the key issue is that these do not include the existence of a god or gods.
There are some atheists who feel that religion is bad, perhaps even evil. In his book God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World—And Why Their Differences Matter, Stephen Prothero writes:
“Atheists argue that the human problem cannot be solved by religion, because religion itself is the problem. Religious belief is man-made and murderous—irrational, superstitious, and hazardous to our health.”
American Atheist President David Silverman, in article in American Atheist, writes:
“But religion is not just incorrect, it is malevolent. It ruins lives, splits families, and justifies hatred and bigotry, all while claiming to be the source for morality. People die and suffer needlessly because of religions: such a waste.”
While there are many people for whom atheism is incompatible with religion, and even opposed to religion, Philosopher Ernest Nagel writes:
“…atheism is not necessarily an irreligious concept, for theism is just one among many views concerning the nature and origin of the world. The denial of theism is logically compatible with the great historical religions.”
Nagel, as well as many others, points out that there are religions, such as early Buddhism, which do not have a concept of god and are considered atheistic.
Is atheism a religion? There are many different opinions on this. Stephen Prothero writes:
“After all, atheism is a religion of sorts, or can be. Many atheists are quite religious, holding their views about God with conviction of zealots and evangelizing with verve.”
For some people religion is a belief system and they feel that atheism is another belief system and therefore should be considered a religion. On the other hand, Richard Wackrow writes:
“Atheism isn’t a belief system at all. It’s a conclusion based on the evidence—or rather, on the complete lack of evidence for the existence of any higher power whatsoever.”
Among Christians, the term “atheist” was, and often still is, used as an insult. Karen Armstrong, in her book A History of God: The 4,000-year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, writes:
“After the Reformation, people had become anxious about Christianity in a new way. Like ‘the witch’ (or, indeed ‘the anarchist’ or ‘the communist’) ‘the atheist’ was the projection of buried anxiety.”
In the Americas, Protestant Christians often called Catholics atheists from the early days of colonization during which Catholics and Protestants were at war with each other, through the formation of Protestant fundamentalism in the twentieth century. In addition, philosophy professor Michael Martin, in an entry in The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief, reports:
“Historically, atheism has sometimes been used as a term of abuse to refer to religious positions that the speaker opposes. Thus, the first Christians were called atheists because they denied the existence of the Roman deities.”
In Saudi Arabia, a country which views itself as homogeneous in accepting Islam by the entire population, there are laws which declare atheists to be enemies of state, equivalent to terrorists.